Medieval Borders

I have attached to the published (1997) Russian text the draft in English for the paper I originally gave in Russian in 1994, with notes added. Quotations from Russian literature, that is discussed in the paper, have been kept but English translations are now given within [].

The reason for presenting this paper at a seminar in Novgorod of foreign scholars working with themes pertaining to Novgorod, “Novgorodiana Extranea” (1994), was that Valentin L Ianin in 1991 published an overview of Novgorod documents (Novgorodskie akty) as preparation for a modern replacement of Gramoty Velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova (GVNP, 1949). Here it was signalled that the fragmentary text that is now called Razgranichitel’naia gramota, according to a theory propounded by Igor’ P. Shaskol’skii, was to be considered part of a treaty, which is known from the Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar to have been concluded in 1251 by the Norwegian king Hákon IV and Aleksandr Nevskii as prince of Novgorod. This treaty has not been preserved, however, in accordance with Shaskol’skii’s theory it was foreseen that our text in the new diplomatic edition of Novgorodian documents would be dated to 1251 and seen as part of this treaty. In my text I argue that it is unlikely that Razgranichitel’naia gramota has anything to do with the 1251 treaty and that it would be a serious mistake in the new edition to postulate such a link, not least because future scholars might unwittingly accept such a dating and context.

The Russian text has for some years, unkown to me, been available on http://norse.ulver.com/articles/lind/delimit.html

The text is based on my English summary to a dissertation (1991) that was published in Danish as Jarl Gallén & John Lind, Nöteborgsfreden och Finlands medeltida östgräns vols 2-3, a sequel to Jarl Gallén’s seminal book from 1968: Nöteborgsfreden och Finlands medeltida östgräns. I got involved in this because Professor Gallén in his book had promised a further volume with maps showing the location of the many, many place names that had been brought into play in the huge, mainly Finnish literature on the subject: the course of the border after all cut through what became Finnish territory. However, an eye disease made it impossible for Gallén to fulfill his promise. In 1985 we agreed that I should compile the maps that now constitute vol. three. In the process I had to reread all the literature on which Gallén had based his book together the many publications that had been published later. This and the knowledge I had of Russian sources that had not been put to use made it possible to see the Nöteborg Peace Treaty (1323) and the border it stipulated in a new perspective. First and foremost I was able to show that between Sweden and Novgorod existed a similar system of overlapping taxational borders that in the 14th century was stipulated between Norway and Novgorod along the Arctic Ocean. Here, in a vast “Common” (erämaa/erämark), Norwegians could tax Lapps [Sámi] far into the Kola Peninsula, while the Novgorodians similarly could tax Lapps as far as Tromsø in present-day Norway. With regard to Sweden and Novgorod a document from 1446 stated that their borders with the Common followed the watersheds (maanselkä) between the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia (corresponding to Novgorod’s taxational border in the west) and the watershed between Gulf of Bothnia and the White Sea (the Swedish border in the east).
The three maps at the end of the text are added from Gallén & Lind vol. 2, where the “Indelningskarta” refers to the detailed maps included in vol. 3.

Hasta la mitad del siglo XIII la línea fronteriza que separaba Aragón de Cataluña era tan difusa como sus respectivas identidades políticas. Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas de la centuria ambos territorios se configuraron como entidades administrativas diferenciadas, como resultado del auge del poder centralizado de los monarcas de la Corona de Aragón y de su peculiar organización territorial; una consecuencia lógica de ello fue la emergencia progresiva de una nítida frontera interna, anteriormente inexistente. El encaje de Ribagorza en uno de los lados de la nueva divisoria generó discrepancias, no solo entre las élites políticas aragonesas y catalanas, sino también entre las propias fuerzas sociales de la zona. En este artículo se pretende mostrar que los distintos intereses de estas últimas en aspectos como el derecho escrito o la fiscalidad extraordinaria fueron la clave del conflicto.

The Iberian Peninsula is considered a paradigmatic example of Medieval frontier societies in Europe. The relationships with Portugal have been object of several studies through time, and especially if focused on the “raya” the Spanish-Portuguese border which has drawn great interest among researchers in the last twenty-five years. However, Art History has forgotten the role that it had as capital element in analyzing and understanding the manifestations of Romanesque art in the territorial scope in this particular case: the ancient diocese of Tui. Therefore, we propose an innovative contribution on the study of Romanesque art whereby we claim the global perspective and the role of the borderline as an element of artistic exchange and cohesion.

Niezwykle interesująco przedstawia się dawna granica Warmii między Świętą Lipką i Reszlem. Znajduje się na niej wiele kamieni granicznych i kopców, które w większości ocalały i zachowały się do dzisiejszych czasów. Na szczególną uwagę zasługuje wykonany z czerwonego granitu kamień graniczny, na którym został wyrzeźbiony biskupi pastorał i krzyż. Obiekt ten został wymieniony w dokumencie z 1431 r. Wszystkie wymienione w publikacji kamienie graniczne widnieją na archiwalnych mapach sporządzonych na przełomie XVI i XVII wieków. Obok kamieni granicznych interesującymi obiektami położonymi na dawnej granicy Warmii są wały podłużne. Do dzisiejszych czasów przetrwały dwa odcinki tego typu umocnień. Inna ciekawostkę stanowią dukty leśne przebiegające przez dawną granicę. Dwa z nich w przeszłości miały znaczenie międzyregionalne.

Estudio de un conjunto de 9 dedales de cronología bajomedieval, procedentes de diferentes sectores de la judería del castillo de Lorca. Su descripción, interpretación y análisis comparado con otros ejemplares de similares características, poniendo especial relevancia en el contexto arqueológico donde fueron recuperadas, en su mayoría, como parte del ajuar doméstico de algunas de las viviendas.

This paper is a short survey of the archaeological research carried out in 2015 at Turnul Spart on the valley of the river Olt. Among the features discovered during this research one must mention the fallen half of the standing ruined tower and a circular surrounding wall. Two harquebuses and a bronze vessel found in this debris offered the necessary data for dating the collapsing of the tower, which most likely occurred in the first half of the 16th Century.

From the treaties the city state Novgorod concluded in the 14th century with its Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden in 1323 and Norway in 1326, together with a Norwegian border delimiting note (before 1330), we know that north of the respective sedentary populations the northern part of Fennoscandia constituted a vast shared territory - a Common (Alminding/Erämaa), where agents of these populations had overlapping and mutually accepted interests in exploiting the riches of the territory, including taxation of and trade with the local Saami populations. Thus the Novgorodian taxational rights extended to Tromsø on the Atlantic coast, the Norwegian rights to the southern White Sea coast of the Kola Peninsula. From other sources we know that the Swedes and their agents among the Finns taxed the Saami in the interior of Northern Fennoscandia. This situation did not change during the next two centuries although the border of sedentary populations in the south gradually but slowly moved northwards and eastwards.
By the mid-16th century, at a time when war in the Baltic region obstructed Russia's trade with the West through the Baltic Sea and the Danish Sound, the Arctic Coast suddenly became a political hot spot. English and Dutch merchant sailors had just re-discovered the route north of Norway and the Kola Peninsula to the Russian market. The affected governments now considered trade along the Arctic route taxable, as it had been at the Sound, and the amount of tax to be levied depended on the length of the coastline the ships had to pass. Consequently it became of paramount importance to lay claim to as much of the coastline as possible and to exclude competitors.
However since the treaties of the 14th century Norway had more or less become a vassal state of Denmark and Novgorod had been conquered outright by the Muscovite state. Therefore decision making concerning the new situation at the Artic Coast had moved from local authorities in Norway and Novgorod to Copenhagen and Moscow. Here officials were unfamiliar with the concept of shared sovereignty as well as overlapping taxational borders.
The paper focuses on the schizophrenia that arose when officials in the Muscovite Chancery of Foreign Affairs (posol’skii prikaz) tried to square the information they received from their collector of the Lapp-tax and their firm belief that borders in the region had to a fixed line. This led them 1) to duplicate the Norwegian town/fortress Vardø 2)that an otherwise unknown Polna River in the vicinity of Varanger Fjord constituted the fixed border between Muscovy and Norway.
With regard to 1) see,
https://www.academia.edu/8974739/The_Tsars_Patrimony_And_the_Duplication_of_Vardø_Vargav_Borders_at_the_Arctic_Ocean_and_Levels_of_Information_in_the_Late_Middle_Ages_and_Early_Modern_Times
2)
https://www.academia.edu/37052483/Lind_Polna_Rivers_and_Russias_Medieval_Borders_with_the_Scandinavian_West.pdf

The set of forgeries of the Hradisko monastery, originated in the second half of 13tg and the beginning of 14th centuries, contains six documents, which describe in great detail the borders of monastic territories in the Konice, Hranice, Šternberk, Olomouc and Velká Střelná areas. In addition to natural border points in the form of streams and mountain ranges, artificial border are also mentioned. Aside from so-called hills, there are roads and bridges. The roads forming the borders are long-distance communications based on ancient early medieval routes, regional routes, often created as a part of the High Medieval landscape transformation, and routes with local significance. For most reads, their names are already established in written sources. The road sections forming the borders are approximately 2.5-4.5 km long.

This paper is focused on Romanesque Art as a way of communicating and approaching the 'other', the 'neighbour' in the Portuguese-Leonese border. This territory is a representative example of frontier in Europe during the Middle Ages. Despite its conflictive status, this territory reflects the cohabitation through Romanesque art. The